I grew up a Yankee fan, I favor Pitchers whenever possible, I am a stathead, and my dream job is to be a GM for an MLB franchise. In the summer, I go to MLB games and catch baseballs. In the winter, I write about what teams are doing to get better or worse. I try to be positive and unbiased in my writing, but that isn't always possible when evaluating teams truthfully.

6/29/12 White Sox at Yankees: Yankee Stadium

You know you didn’t get everything the day offered when your first picture is of a ball you missed:

A ball, which I should have caught on the fly, hit right below the “State Farm” sign. I was on the staircase, below it, but it ricocheted so quickly, it zoomed right past me, where a guy picked it up.

Greg Barasch was at this game, and so was his dad, Shelly . A few seconds after I returned to my spot on the staircase, Shelly arrived on the scene, telling me he saw me miss the ball that I agree I “should have had. He then tossed me a bottle of water:

I can’t thank him enough for him. This was a game with ridiculous humidity, and I would have been miserable/dead had I not had this bottle of water.

My first ball of the day came in an unintentional way. I went down to the front row to get Jayson Nix to throw me a ball. Just as I called out to him, a Yankees righty hit a ball just to my right. There was another person there, but they were only paying attention to Nix, so I reached slightly over them and caught the ball:

The arrow points to where I was when I caught the ball.

My next ball was also kind of lucky. I misplayed it, like most balls this day, but I ended up with it. Here is the path the ball took:

I “should” have gone in the last row, where I could have caught the ball on the fly, but I went two rows under that, so I turned around and tried to play the bounce. It bounced way too fast for me to actually catch it, but miraculously, the all hit my foot, and stopped right there so I could pick it up. I think I gave this ball away, but it may have been the next ball I snagged that I gave away. I need to take better notes, I know.

After this, I went over into foul territory, along with Greg to get the White Sox to toss us some baseballs, but the White Sox didn’t throw ONE SINGLE baseball into the crowd, not even to Greg or myself, who were decked out in White Sox gear. After getting rejected by all the White Sox, we both went back to the left field seats.

I then sandwiched a ball that hit right off my glove, and I should have had between two balls I caught on the fly in left field. Despite the fact that the ball I missed was one I definitely should have had, I am VERY proud I caught two balls on the fly. Why? This was the view of the spot where I was standing (I stepped out of that spot briefly to take the picture):

That said, I was taller than all of them, so when I caught the second of the two home runs (I don’t know who hit either). I I gave it away to one of the kids.

I can’t remember if it was before or after the catches, but while I was in the left field seats, I bore witness to the gutsiest thing I’ve ever seen at a ballpark. Coincidentally, it was Greg who did it:

Greg is the one in the circle. When a ball got hit into the bleachers where the arrow is, no one in the bleachers was closing in on it, so Greg climbed into the bleachers to secure the ball. The weirdest thing about the whole experience was no security guards ever came up to him afterwards. Nothing.

Like I had done the previous day’s game, I went over to the right field seats when Adam Dunn’s group came up. As is expected, they took a few rounds before they started pulling the ball. When they did, most of the balls were going into the Yankees bullpen, but Adam Dunn hit one the back row, where I was stationed, so I ran over and caught it on the fly:

The spot where I caught it is pointed out, but do ou notice anything odd about the baseball? If not, this should clear it up:

Oh. My. Goodness. It was a Dodgers Stadium 50th anniversary ball. That means I only have to snag the Astros and Marlins balls to have gotten all of the specialty commemorative baseballs this year. For those who don’t know, there are six commemorative baseballs being used during the regular season. They are: the Mets are commemorating their 50th year as a team, the Houston Astros are doing the same, the Dodgers are commemorating Dodgers Stadium’s 50th anniversary, the Marlins are commemorating the inaugural season of Marlins Park, the Orioles are commemorating the 20th anniversary of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the Red Sox are commemorating the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park. I have now snagged four of these.

Soon after the catch, security cleared everyone out of the left field seats. I then headed down the narrowest concourse (if you even consider it a concourse and not a tunnel) known to man, which also happens to be one that I have to deal with most days since it links right and left field at Yankee Stadium:

and up to my seats in the bleachers. I didn’t get anything up there for the rest of batting practice, but after it, I headed up to the batter’s eye where I got Mike Harkey (not pictured, because he walked out of view) to toss me my 6th ball of the day:

After which, I headed to my seat in left field, where this was my view:

As for the game, it was fugly, or a nice low scoring football game depending on your perspective. More specifically, the White Sox beat the Yankees 14-7. Like I mentioned, before, it was über humid this game. Even though the bleachers were packed to start this game, these were the views of the bleachers towards the end of the game from my seat:

Juan Nieves ignored me for the second straight night, and I left the game with 6 baseballs.

On my train ride back to Manhattan, I saw something you don’t often see:

I don’t know the exact odds, but I’d say it’s pretty rare when you see only one subway door open, not on purpose. So in this case, would it be “Stand clear of the closing door, please”? [lame New York joke] Oh, and the arm in that picture belonged to Greg. He ended the day with his post-B.P. total of 5 balls, despite sitting by the dugout the whole game. That’s bad for him, but it meant I had out-snagged the two ballhawks with the highest per-game averages on my gameballs.com the past two nights. This game I out-snagged Greg (number 2 on the site with an average of 7.31 Balls Per Game) 6-5. The previous game’s night I had out-snagged Zack Hample (number 1 on the site with an average of 7.47 Balls Per Game) 7-5. Yay for shallow victories!

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Ballhawking Sites

Cook & Sons' Baseball Adventures
Although most ballhawking blogs are, Todd Cook’s narrative of his and his sons’ adventures going to ballparks is the closest thing there is to a father-son-baseball written reality show.

Hit Tracker
An amazing tool that was responsible for my success at Yankee Stadium in 2010. See Season end review (Nov, 1, 2010) if you want to see the difference @ Yankee Stadium.

My Game Balls
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My mygameballs.com account
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Plouffe's New Hairdo
One of my new Minnesota friends, Tony Voda’s ballhawking/Twins/music-in-the-offseason-but-sometimes-during-the-season-too blog.

Steel City Ballhawk
A blog written by elite ballhawk, Nick Pelescak, about all of the games he attends, which is a ton since he is a season ticket holder at PNC Park.

The Ballhawker
The ballhawking blog of a fellow New York ballhawk, Chris Hernandez.

Zack Hample (The Baseball Collector)
Now If you are reading this blog there is a .00009 % chance that you haven’t visited this blog, but as a service to the reason this blog exists I want to have Zack add that .00009% to his viewership. It is the least I can do.

MLBlogs I Recommend and Follow

Ballparks on a Budget
Ever want to go to a baseball game outside of your local team but don’t want to empty the bank? Alicia Barnhart’s your girl with Ballparks on a Budget. She should know how to spend wisely in going to games because, well, she’s been to them all. Just last

Dodger Blue World
Just a great blog written by dedicated Dodger super-fan Emma Amaya.

Minoring In Baseball
A blog written by the father of just a family who are all fans of the West Michigan Whitecaps who is just a great guy in general: Michael David.

MLB.com Blogs Central
As the title kind of suggests, this blog is pretty much the center of the MLBlogs unvierse. It apply sometimes goes by the moniker: “MLBlogosphere”

The Ballpark Guide
A MUST-read for any MiLB afficionados, or even many MLB fans. Malcolm MacMillan goes to different ballparks all over and details his visit on the blog and writes tips for anyone going to that ballpark on his website (which can be found on the blog’s homep

The Next White Sox GM
If you were a baseball mind growing up, you may have gotten a comment from an elder female family member (usually grandma) saying, “You should be the one to run the team with all the knowledge you’ve got about baseball.” Well, here’s a kid who might just

The Unbiased MLB Fan
Matt Huddleston doesn’t root for the teams; he roots for the players. I wish I could say more, but I suspect any other explanation of his blog would be a multi-centennial-word ordeal.

Three Up, Three Down
One would assume not getting into the MLB Fan Cave is a sad experience. (Well, at least I would; I’ve never been old enough to apply.) However, this group of fans turned that usually-sad experience and turned it into a great blog where there are just a sl

MLBlogs I Recommend

Observing Baseball Classics

"The Baseball" Book Review
In this entry I reviewed/summarized the entirety of the book “The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches” written by Zack Hample.

10/19/10 ALCS: Yankee Stadium
Sure I had no clue how to write it, but this was my first ballhawking entry ever and my only of 2010, so it falls under the category “classic”

Ballhawk Charities 2012
Where I went over the four ballhawk charities I had heard of at the beginning of the season as a way of helping them out by getting the word out.

Case Study on Morality in Baseball
A research paper I did way back in the summer of 2010. I don’t necessarily agree with everything I wrote back then anymore, but it does add an interesting perspective to things especially in today’s steroid talk.

Collected Baseball Knick-knacks
Quite simply: pretty much everything baseball-related that I had collected and managed to keep ahold of as of November, 20, 2011.

Dissecting/Deconstructing Baseballs
I’ve taken apart several baseballs before, and it was fun, so I decided to make a video of me taking apart a baseball and adding tips for other people to do so too.

Favorite MLB Players
I did probably one of my funner videos on who my favorite players were from the present day, when I first started watching baseball, and my favorite player that I never saw play at all.

Houlihan Park Tour and Snagging Analysis
This is my high school, Fordham Prep,’s home field, which being the manager of the varsity team for three years, I spent proabably more games here than at any other baseball field. So when I returned to my high school for a day, I took a quick tour of the

Observing Baseball Trivia
See the description of the link two links above, but modify it slightly so it fits this entry’s title.

Pitching Aces in the Playoffs
My first ever “real” entry that I ever wrote back on the surplus of star pitchers in the 2010 playoffs. It was pretty good considering I knew nothing about blogging, or writing in general for that matter.

Pure Genius
This is just me explaining how the Phillies got three aces of pitchers; nothing fancy. But it was me showing my first flash of general manager mind to the world, so that’s why I like it.

Sabermetrics (the explanation)
This was me explaining some simple sabermetric statistics for the people of the world who have heard of the stats but never really knew what significance they had/have over the more common metrics. I take pride in this because it can potentially educate s

Survey of Adults Perception of Baseball
I surveyed a bunch of my teacher as to which baseball player was there favorite; both in and outside of New York. It’s a bit more complex than that, but the only way to understand is to read the entry.

Tour Target Field in the Snow
Target Field is in Minnesota, so it only felt fitting that I should take at least one day to tour it while it was buried in the snow. And that’s what this entry was: a video of me going around Target Field while it was snowing and there was a ton of snow

Weird Observing Baseball Facts and Records
I may yet do this every year…and it would then become its own link category–but for the meantime–there is only one set of Observing Baseball Facts and Records, so it definitely goes under “Observing Baseball Classics”.

Blast from the Baseball Past

8/24/08 Dodgers at Phillies: Citizens Bank Park
My second ever game to CBP that ended with Pedro Feliz hitting a three-run walk-off home run while my dad and I were in the car because we had to catch a flight to Detroit seven hours later that same day in New York.

Obsevers of Baseball

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